Jaylan Salah interviews film director Giovanna Ribes about her new film The Family: Dementia

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The Family: Dementia Review

A Valencian Family Drama that Defies Storytelling in Color

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It was a pleasure during the 38th edition of Cairo International Film Festival to get a chance to sit down with Valencian director Giovanna Ribes to talk about her film The Family: Dementia. This powerful drama paints the deterioration of a man’s memory and behavior against the backdrop of familial tension. One of the greater aspects of the film is how Ribes allowed her male characters to show vulnerability as opposed to their female counterparts, who have more composed actions. Three generations of men come to interact in a well-planned narrative with a scratchy, rough style influenced by neo-realism that contains artistic, magical realist interjections.

The grandfather Roger –played brilliantly by Pep Cortés- suffers from dementia. He ages amongst family members who struggle to accept him as he is while his memory slips away. The most sympathetic –and adorably clueless- is the grandson Roger and he is the only one who succeeds in taking the old man for who he is. Ribes takes us into the heart of a real family. Her narrative is inspired by reality. To her, art has no impact if it is not personal. Ribes’ drive to become a director didn’t turn out to be as easy as I thought. In my eyes, it would be really easy for her to become an artist. Her sensitivity shone through her clever eyes and her compassionate gestures. Through her words, the process was gradual:

“I belonged to a family of circus performers and bullfighters. They were artists in that sense. Growing up, I was tired of the discussions and the arguments which their lifestyle generated. I just wanted to be normal.”

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Poetry from Vijay Nair

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Water War

Mom died in a battle; at last

Occurred at a remote aquifers

A battle field, since long;

For a crock of water

A battle aided; none munitions

Threw it into the potable,

That made Croaky noises;

A bucket tied with a coir rope

Milk run after Mexican breakfast none;

Marched miles across all deserted;

Sandals no foot under sore mustered

Neck in crick head on pot mosh

Folks pooled a pond around

Flowed from; pot in no Hydrus

Village an armada in dropped chaos;

Verbose a multitude conquered with

A rift no among them harvested;

A rift in solid waterless reaped

Mesopotamia an uncivilized cradle         

Our Tigris and Euphrates 

Gone with the wind all rocks rolled;

Cloud of water vaporized: weird

Waste land all asexual parasites

Arid nowhere holy hydrosphere

Erosion everywhere an ergative water

Erupted war ergo world again third

His conch in all oceans above decibel;

Hegemony he a Hawk ruled the roost

When in east heard chanting:

Gage cha yamune chaiva

Godhavary Saraswathy

Narmadhe Sindhu Kavery

Jalesmin sannidhim kuru:

                                                                                                         Written By

                                                                                                       Vijay P Nair

                                               Water scarcity leads us a third world war soon……

Poetry from J.K. Durick

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Men My Age
Men my age sit in bars with their golfing buddies,
order single malt scotch by name like an old friend,
the connoisseurs they have become; men my age
get their pictures in papers, in alumni magazines,
getting or giving, their due, or just the right amount;
men my age remember retiring, watch their portfolios,
speak of money and past deals with a reverence they
reserve for sacred things, like those; men my age don’t
talk about women much anymore, their wives and/or
their girlfriends are grandparents, like them, and rarely
recall all the names and dates; men my age drive trophy
cars and vacation in warmer places in the winter, around
here only in the summer; men my age like to be asked for
their opinion about politics and current events, like to be
asked as if the listeners expect wisdom from all those years,
love to compare the present to the old days when things
were as they should be and people knew their proper
places and behaved themselves; men my age like to imply
that they did things in the past, knew this guy and that,
knew who did what to whom, but don’t like to talk about it
now; men my age admit their age when pressed, when that
detail adds to their stake in a conversation; men my age
rarely write poems anymore, remember writing them once,
but can’t for the life of them remember why.
J. K. Durick is a writing teacher at the Community College of Vermont and an online writing tutor. His recent poems have appeared in Social Justice Poetry, Tuck Magazine, Stanzaic Stylings, Synchronized Chaos, and Autumn Sky Poetry.

Essay from Donal Mahoney

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Long Before ISIS

 
Thirty years ago, long before ISIS started executing Kurds, Muslims and Christians, I hired a Pakistani Muslim as an art director in Chicago. I was an Irish Catholic editor putting out a small national magazine. I hired him because his work samples were good and he had worked for the United States embassy in Pakistan for more than a decade. The embassy facilitated his emigration to America. It didn’t hurt that he had seven children and I had five. I too knew the misery of being out of work with a family.
 
Different as we were, Mohammed and I were also much alike. Deadlines and details were important to both of us. Other than the two of us, the staff was female. It helped on occasion to have another man around the office.

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Christopher Bernard’s Trumplandia sampler

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The following poems have been mauled, marred and mutilated by Christopher Bernard

Trump Chaucer

(Adapted from Geoffrey Chaucer)

Whan that Novembre with his shoures sote                                                 The drought of sumer hath perced to the rote,                                           And bathed every veyne in swich liquor                                                         That wine must come out of its every flour,                                              Whan Fox News eek with its bitterr breeth                                   Depressed hath in every holt and heeth                                                         The rotting croppes, and the ageing sonne                                                   Hath in the his last halve cours yronne,                                                           And smale foweles maken threnodye,                                                             That slepen al the nyght with open ye                                                         Acause they cannot sleep, for comes the snowe,                                       And all must end that we will ever knowe,                                                   Then voters con to go to polling places                                                                   To cast thir votes in the correct spaces.

And so they came this yeere and voted dead                                               The world that made them, and us buriéd.

*

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Rui Carvalho reviews Living Will, book collection by Andre Oliveira and Joana Afonso

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Artwork from Living Will

Artwork from Living Will

The comics “Living Will” is an original idea by André Oliveira (writer) and Joana Afonso (graphic designer). I strongly recommend you to try this collection of seven small books because, I believe, their content is truly unique and, most of all, it is “an arrow to our hearts,” capturing our attention.

The very first sentences are revealing: “My pops used to say life’s just like a pint of beer. It begins as a sparkly refreshing nectar, bringing some kind of golden and sacred joy, and it ends with bitter taste.” There’s a depth of feeling or an unusual sacred revelation (or not) in these words that takes the piece to another level of meaning where time really matters.  Especially if we take into account that old Will’s life as he understands it has “reached sort of a dead end, so it seems.” He is the main character, the hero of this adventure and all he feels is that something has happened that he should take into account. He misses Judith, his dead spouse, but, on the other hand he has a bag full of pieces of memories encrypted in small white papers…

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Poetry from Joan Beebe

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THE SECRET WORLD OF NATURE
 
Softly treading through the mossy grasses in a pristine wood,
 
There is a feeling of peace that envelops you as well as
 
The strength that seems to fill you with a confidence not known before.
 
Gazing at dew drop leaves that sparkle in the sunlight
 
Finding the small beginnings of renewal from a once devastated forest.
 
Small shoots of trees that will become again a tribute to nature.
 
The constant moving and shifting of the earth causing new
 
Life to appear in the way rivers can change their course
 
Or new life may appear in remote areas of the earth.
 
Nature gives life to the world around us –
 
From the variety of animals, birds and those who crawl on the ground.
 
Each species contributes to the life of the forest and everyone
 
Benefits from the growth and renewal of the great forests across our land.
 
From a sandy shore we gaze at the far away horizon.  It seems endless but we know that it will end thousands of miles from us, at a distant shore.
 
The waters look peaceful but below the surface there is a constant struggle between Life and death.  All of the aquatic species have predators and the last one is man.
 
The oceans are constantly replenishing themselves to keep life and growth for the needs of our civilization. There is a  quiet and peaceful feeling in your soul when walking on a beach.  The shimmering sun shines down upon the sand causing the illusion of waves in motion as it softly runs between your toes.  You feel the water tickling and soothing
your feet.  One feels relaxed and free in this environment. 
 
Nature not only provides man with food, materials and water but  beauty beyond description and we are thankful for its gifts.

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